The Daily News
Torah learning
The famed rosh chabura of Slonim and mashpia, Rav Mordechai Slonim, once told the following story.
Jewish Yiddish newspapers and gazettes had become something new, and people were buying them. “Why are all of you buying these new newspapers and gazettes?” asked Rav Elazar Nissan.
“We want to learn what is happening out there in the wider world, and the newspapers and gazettes tell us the world news,” they explained.
Rav Elazar Nissan persisted in his questioning and even sounded puzzled. Finally he asked, “But why do you need a newspaper to find out what is going on in the world? As for myself,” he told the astonished assembly, “I simply study the daily Chok L’Yisrael (a collection of Tanach, Mishnah, Gemara, Zohar and mussar, based on the Arizal and divided up by the days of the week), and from it I learn everything there is to know about what is going on out there in the whole wide world.”